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Earth Politics Science

We Stopped At Two Nuclear Bombs; We Can Stop At Two Degrees. 341

Posted by timothy from the ok-but-where-to-buy-the-best-grazing-land dept.
Lasrick writes Dawn Stover writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that climate change is irreversible but not unstoppable. She describes the changes that are happening already and also those likely to happen, and compares what is coming to the climate of the Pliocene: 'Even if countries reduce emissions enough to keep temperatures from rising much above the internationally agreed-upon "danger" threshold of 2 degrees Celsius (which seems increasingly unlikely), we can still look forward to conditions similar to those of the mid-Pliocene epoch of 3 million years ago. At that time, the continents were in much the same positions that they are today, carbon dioxide levels ranged between 350 and 400 ppm, the global average temperature was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than it is today (but up to 20 degrees higher than today at the northernmost latitudes), the global sea level was about 25 meters higher, and most of today's North American forests were grasslands and savanna.' Stover agrees with two scientists published in Nature Geoscience that 'Future warming is therefore driven by socio-economic inertia," and points the way toward changing a Pliocene future.
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We Stopped At Two Nuclear Bombs; We Can Stop At Two Degrees. More

We Stopped At Two Nuclear Bombs; We Can Stop At Two Degrees.

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  • Poor choice of example (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ginger_Chris ( 1068390 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @05:55AM (#49152771)

    Considering there have been over 2000 nuclear tests

    • Re:Poor choice of example (Score:4, Insightful)

      by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @07:59AM (#49153059)

      Even more so when you think no one else had a good reason to use nukes againist an enemy. Even today the estimates for bringing an end to world war two wa hundreds of thousands of lives, and another 1-2 years of fighting. Unlike Germany fire bombing Japanese cities wasn't having the desired effect.

      No wars since then have been that desperate for those with nukes. Which is the only reason why north Korea is troubling. North Korea or Iran will feel desperate enough to use them.

      • Re:Poor choice of example (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28, 2015 @08:16AM (#49153107)

        Germany never fire bombed Japanese cities, mostly due to commas.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by penguinoid ( 724646 )

      Considering there have been over 2000 nuclear tests

      We stopped at 2000 nuclear tests, we can stop at a 2000 degree Celsius increase in temperature.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jawnn ( 445279 )
      Whoosh...
  • and "we" can do the stopping? George Carlin reference here.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rastos1 ( 601318 )

      and "we" can do the stopping?

      May be we can't. But we surely can make it worse. And the appropriate piece of wisdom in such situation is: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!

      • Global warming is a great thing - just ask Canada, especially the places that are currently -40 degrees.

        Scientists need someone that knows marketing. We don't care about what they talk about... link the argument to our pay or something useful.

        Final thought... comparisons are to rebuilding today's infrastructure as if it wasn't constantly changing already. We have decades and perhaps centuries to adjust - ever hear of constant improvement?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by itzly ( 3699663 )

          Global warming is a great thing - just ask Canada, especially the places that are currently -40 degrees.

          The History channel will be happy to learn that they can start planning a few years of Mud Road Truckers, after the permafrost melts.

        • Global warming is a great thing - just ask Canada, especially the places that are currently -40 degrees.

          As opposed to those near freezing - at the Arctic Circle? There is a reason why "Global" is capitalized. Here's a nice world map how temperatures where compared to the average for Jan. 2015: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/ [noaa.gov]

          Final thought... comparisons are to rebuilding today's infrastructure as if it wasn't constantly changing already. We have decades and perhaps centuries to adjust - ever hear of constant improvement?

          We are decades behind fixing our infrastructure already - do you really want to drag that out even longer?

        • Re:ok, so it's not unstoppable (Score:4, Informative)

          by CaptainLard ( 1902452 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @10:43AM (#49153717)

          Global warming is a great thing - just ask Canada, especially the places that are currently -40 degrees.

          Right, because when their average temperature suddenly jumps up to 25C, those northern frozen wastelands will instantly become a tropical paradise/breadbasket of the earth. Nevermind that since nothing has grown taller than a foot in 100s (1000s?) of thousands of years there are no nutrients in the soil and its much more likely to turn into a desert (much like rainforests do after deforestation). The effort to turn our newly thawed tundra into the fertile paradise all you "AGW aint so bad" crowd like to spout all the time could well be greater than eliminating all CO2 emissions within 5 years.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Lumpy ( 12016 )

          Marketing wont help. when 90% of the population are functional morons when it comes to science you cant say anything to convince people that just can not understand why warmer planet means more dramatic cold during the winter.

      • The problem is that we're digging and Africa gets to sit in the hole.

  • But We Didn't (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @06:00AM (#49152785) Homepage Journal
    We didn't stop at 2 nuclear bombs. We exploded them and exploded them like they were goddamn tic-tacs. We didn't even do that safely -- we exploded them near our own civilian populations, telling the people that it was harmless and not to worry about that fallout. Judging from our track record with the things, some politician in Washington had read too many comic books and was hoping that some of the civilians would develop super powers. Instead, they just got lymphoma and birth defects. We made those goddamn things and put them in the hands of the least responsible people on the planet and stopped only after irreparable harm was done to thousands of lives. So yeah, you can draw that analogy if you want to but I don't think it points to as rosy a future as you might think it does.

    • Re:But We Didn't (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Eunuchswear ( 210685 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @06:06AM (#49152797) Journal

      Yup, sounds exactly like the way we're "dealing" with global warming.

    • Yeah, using nuclear bombs as an example of restraint isn't very enlightened. We made bombs for one purpose, and when that purpose went away we instantly found another use for them as soon as we had the first bombs ready, and then proceeded by furiously making as many of them as possible. The main reason we haven't blown up the planet a few times is luck.

      • Re:But We Didn't (Score:4, Interesting)

        by tnk1 ( 899206 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @12:28PM (#49154309)

        No. The reason we have not blown up the rest of the world has nothing to do with luck. There has been a very concerted effort to keep them on a leash. If you think that its all luck, remove all the controls we have added over the years against proliferation and watch how quickly a very large western city becomes an irradiated wasteland due to some extremist with too much money and too little sense.

        If World War III is going to happen, it is not because someone got unlucky, but because someone created a plan to use those weapons for some purpose. That won't be luck, that will be pure stupidity.

        • No. We've been lucky. And yes, there have been successful attempts to get them better under control. The first 20 years were pretty reckless and afterwards there also have been unintended close calls.

    • We exploded them like they were tic-tacs? How do you explode a tic-tac? Calling Bad Analogy Police...

  • Let it happen (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jack Griffin ( 3459907 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @06:16AM (#49152811)
    It's clear there too much political indifference to reduce emissions, so instead of trying to force skeptics/deniers/unbelievers into towing the line, why not a contract with them. You're choose to be on the bus and help reduce the problem, or stick to your guns and face consequences if it turns out the science was right. I imagine you'd start by laying down a set of climate benchmarks, agree on what is an acceptable variation under normal conditions, then should the averages begin to venture beyond those on the regular basis, and cause significant economic damage, the public (govt) confiscates all the assets of the entity, the directors, the board, and any previous board members/directors and anyone they gifted or passe don wealth to, from now on. Seems like a fair way to deal with the problem, since if you firmly believe things won't change you have nothing to lose. Sure we end up in the shit, but it's clear we end up in the shit anyway, at least this way we eventually there's some risk to be taken on-board and we save all the pointless arguments. Right now the carbon industry has nothing to lose by blocking their ears, and this is this problem

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by epine ( 68316 )

      I imagine you'd start by laying down a set of climate benchmarks, agree on what is an acceptable variation under normal conditions, then should the averages begin to venture beyond those on the regular basis ...

      I don't think you've read much Taleb. Your "benchmark" sounds like something freshly checked out from the LTCM [wikipedia.org] Lemma Loans Library.

      In a sufficiently complex system (Rule 110 [wikipedia.org]), means are not guaranteed to exist (Cauchy--Lorentz distribution [wikipedia.org]).

      Jay Rosen on Edge.org [edge.org]:

      Still, we would be better off if we k

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khallow ( 566160 )
      You know, it's not that hard to set up betting markets to pay out for this kind of stuff. For example, the US DARPA tried to create such a market, the Policy Analysis Market [wikipedia.org] for a variety of foreign policy events, including climate change related stuff. They got shot down hard by a couple of political clowns because it was going to cause political assassinations or something.

      Punishing people for having the wrong opinions seems all too common in this debate, but if you want sensible argument then throw so

  • Climate change phobia (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @06:42AM (#49152869) Journal

    Frankly, what are people so concerned about? Climate's gonna change, people gonna die or relocate, society will have to adapt, animals will die out... But nature will adapt qnd so will we. It's gonna suck a lot but it's not gonna be a tangible end to anything.

    • Re:Climate change phobia (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drolli ( 522659 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @07:23AM (#49152959) Journal

      Only question is the speed.

      If you change something over 10000years, ok people will move and adapt.

      If you change the same thing over 100 or 200 years, you may have a period of an increased numer of wars.

      • you may have a period of an increased number of wars

        Yeah, but then GP would just say:
        Frankly, what are people so concerned about? War's gonna happen, people gonna die or relocate, society will have to adapt, socioeconomic structures will adapt and so will we. It's gonna suck a lot but it's not gonna be a tangible end to anything.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drolli ( 522659 )

          I am not worried if humanity survives, but if you look into history, provoking wars was never a good idea.

          What happens if, e.g. China falls apart in an uncontrolled fashion, or Russia, or India? Or even the US? limate change is a economic risk on a global scale.

          I hope that this does not happen withing my lifetime.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Tremulous ( 4023879 )
        The further back into the past you go, the lower the resolution of the data. There's no way you can assign any confidence to judgements about the speed of natural variation today compared to that 3,000,000 years ago. You simply cannot have the statistical confidence. But that doesn't usually stop scientists (but mostly environmentalists with political agendas) attempting to do so.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bug1 ( 96678 )

      Frankly, what are people so concerned about?

      "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the sam

    • Re:Climate change phobia (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mystuff ( 1088543 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @07:51AM (#49153023)

      I'm no expert on the matter either. But I can imagine that a sea level rise of a few meters (at the turn of the century) will results in tremendous economic damage (relocation of hundreds of million of people *and* real estate, as most of the population on Earth is housed in large cities in coastal regions), famine (due to loss of agricultural land), and territorial conflicts.

      In any case, I think we have now arrived at the point where anyone that has children born after 2010 finds oneself in the situation where ones children, and grandchildren are going to be seriously affected by climate change and overpopulation. Those have to ask themselves what they are going to tell their grandchildren, 50 years from now, about how they had the ability to make a difference but couldn't agree on how bad it was going to be and therefore decided inaction was the best course of action.

      Anyways what's the worst that can happen? [youtube.com] and what is the real cost of climate change? [youtube.com]

      • But I can imagine that a sea level rise of a few meters (at the turn of the century) will results in tremendous economic damage

        Just think about all the fun stuff that will get lifted out of the soil and carried into the oceans when that happens!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        I'm no expert on the matter either. But I can imagine that a sea level rise of a few meters (at the turn of the century) will results in tremendous economic damage (relocation of hundreds of million of people *and* real estate, as most of the population on Earth is housed in large cities in coastal regions)

        I live in a city in a "coastal region" and what's generally recognized as the city center is 10m above sea level with most areas trending upwards, 2 meters would affect <5% of the city. So there's coastal cities and there's "flat as a pancake cities that are 1 meter above sea level", you can take a look for yourself here [geology.com]. Note that the links in the top bar is showing you pretty much the worst case locations, zoom out and you can see the whole world. Take for example New York at 2m, the bulk of the city i

        • So there's coastal cities and there's "flat as a pancake cities that are 1 meter above sea level"

          And then there's New Orleans. Average height above Sea Level is MINUS 0.5 meters. Range is 6m above to 2m below.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by itzly ( 3699663 )

            And then there's the Netherlands, with 27% of the country below sea level, including some major cities and industrial areas.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Kohath ( 38547 )

        Sea levels rise about 2-3mm per year [wikipedia.org] when you're not using your imagination.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khallow ( 566160 )

        But I can imagine that a sea level rise of a few meters (at the turn of the century) will results in tremendous economic damage (relocation of hundreds of million of people *and* real estate, as most of the population on Earth is housed in large cities in coastal regions), famine (due to loss of agricultural land), and territorial conflicts.

        And I can imagine that it won't. After all, those hundreds of millions of people are going to move and rebuild infrastructure several times each over that period of time. Some of those moves will just be uphill.

        In any case, I think we have now arrived at the point where anyone that has children born after 2010 finds oneself in the situation where ones children, and grandchildren are going to be seriously affected by climate change and overpopulation.

        Overpopulation has been a factor probably since the dawn of humanity. It's not that hard to reproduce to the point where you've reached the carrying capacity of the local environment.

        Similarly, we've probably been affected by climate change over that same interval. It's just now that part of that

      • are going to be seriously affected by climate change and overpopulation.

        Define overpopulation. If you mean an actual insufficiency of key physical resources (i.e. food)...then we're nowhere close to the Earth's limit, and we wont be when population stabilizes around 10 billion mid-century, either. It doesn't count if there's not enough food only because some people wont stop eating meat or turning food into fuel.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      It's not going to be too bad. Think about it. We all have handheld computers that are continuously connected to essentially all the world's information. We have the ability to shape our world as never before in history. People move across and between continents routinely. The advantages of modern life make otherwise catastrophic problems into mere inconveniences.

      And that's now. This article wants you to worry about hundreds of years in the future. We can expect technological progress to continue to i

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        This article wants you to worry about hundreds of years in the future. We can expect technological progress to continue to improve things for us

        I expect us to be dead, then.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      Climate's gonna change, people gonna die or relocate, society will have to adapt, animals will die out

      Why would you want this?

      Why would you choose the 'it's goona suck' option?

      The 'it's gonna suck' option is clearly tangible.

      The 'It's gonna suck + people gonna die' Is something to be concerned about.

      Your post doesn't make any sense and is full of straight forwards contradictions.

    • Re: Climate change phobia (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @12:50PM (#49154437)

      Read E. C. Pielou, specifically After the Ice Age. It's a nice description of what happened last time we had climate change.

      As of 1990, we were still not as warm as we were 10,000 years ago. The Milankovitch cycle still continues, and the next ice age approaches.

  • It's about time I got my metapsychic powers and ramapithecus servants.

  • It's funny (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @07:43AM (#49153003)

    Really. I can't help but laugh every time there's a climate change bickering here on /.

    It's absolutely stunningly awesome. You have two sides, zealous in their quest to convince everyone and their dog that they're right. Both sides have various "studies", produced more likely than not in a dark, rather warm but also quite smelly place and pulled out of there with little ceremony. Both sides accusing the other side of shilling, resorting to name calling and whatnot.

    And neither side has any idea what to DO if they're right.

    That's the actual joke here. Let's say, just for argument's sake, that there is global warming and that the whole sky-is-falling scenario will happen (which, I will freely admit, I think actually will happen). What now? Does anyone where really think there will be anything REMOTELY close to global consent on laws to lower the impact? Seriously? Fuck, we can't even get international consensus on stuff that presents an immediate and direct danger rather than a maybe-kinda-could-be-sorta danger in half a century. Even if we DID know for a fact, no doubt about it, 100% sure, proven FACT, that in 50 years life on earth as we know it would be impossible, you would NOT get any kind of international law going. No chance, no way.

    But hey, keep talking. If nothing else, it's entertaining.

    • Re:It's funny (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday February 28, 2015 @08:44AM (#49153201) Homepage Journal

      And neither side has any idea what to DO if they're right.

      No, we know what needs to be done, we don't know how to force people to do it. And it very much takes force. The people whining about it seem to forget that this is how the world works. People with different ideas eventually come to blows because in the real world you can't do both things.

      • And this is where the whole deal breaks down, because there will never be such a thing. Nobody will be forced.

        The only ones that could enforce something like this are the politicians, leaders of states that can create laws. Such laws will not come into existence, though, since that would require a global consensus because one country doing such a move alone will invariably cripple its economy. Global treaties that are supposed to be more than a stack of paper with letters, i.e. treaties that will be enforce

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DamonHD ( 794830 )

      It must be lovely to be so cool and detached about such things. Do wars and pandemics and poverty also induce belly laughs in you?

      Rgds

      Damon

      • I'm generally detached about things I'm powerless to influence. I'm usually the only calm person in a plane flying through a hurricane. Is there anything I can do? No. Why bother getting worked up about it?

        Believe me, if I had to fly that plane, I'd be nervous as hell, but in the passenger seat... lean back and enjoy the roller coaster ride.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DamonHD ( 794830 )

          But you're not powerless to influence the subject of this debate, you're just throwing in the towel for no good reason it seems to me, and are therefore actively avoiding getting the best outcome, which is negligent.

          Do you bother to vote?

          Rgds

          Damon

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by itzly ( 3699663 )

            Do you bother to vote?

            I don't. The possible difference caused by a single vote does not outweigh the trouble of participating.

          • But sure, I love elections! Great shows with lots and lots of entertainment value. Only thing that bugs me about them is that I'm asked to choose without having a choice.

  • Fry: This snow is beautiful. I'm glad global warming never happened.

    Leela: Actually, it did. But thank God nuclear winter canceled it out.

  • Not only (as others have pointed out) did we not stop at two, but setting off nuclear bombs is just a thing you can decide not to do. We may well be past the point of climate runaway, and if that's so then we would have to engage in concerted effort to prevent the imminent demise of the relative condition of biostasis we've enjoyed all the time.

    Or hell, maybe the next ice age cycle will solve the problem, through some as-yet-unimagined mechanism. The question then becomes whether we'll survive that.

  • since stopping global warming costs way too much, let us nuke a few more cities!
  • Far left continues to blame the west while ignoring the fact that china's production is more than the entire west. see for yourself. [livescience.com]
    As long as everybody points elsewhere and screams about per capita while ignoring the bulk of CO2, we have no chance.

  • I just don't get the big rush. I understand that green house gases are rising temperatures. I understand the possible impacts of rising water levels, more chaotic weather, changing farm lands...

    But lets be clear. This polluting has been going on for the industrial revolution. Over two hundred years.

    We're already getting fairly competitive hybrid and electric cars. Most car companies have decent models. Revolutionary firms like Tesla are there. Who knows what Google and Apple will do.

    We already have a fair a

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